A/N: I got several replies to Sara's characterlast chapter, and I realized that I'd forgotten--most of you don't know me like those in the Numb3rs fic section. I'm new here! So to fill you in, I have a strict no-messing-with-the-characters policy: There will NEVER be a Mary-Sue-ish "Dean falls in love with girl and leaves hunting and Sam behind to be with her" scenario from me. I swear. So, while we will see Sara again one more short time before the end of this fic, this chapter is really the only time we'll have her around. No worries there.
Disclaimer: I don't own it. I still wish I did, though.
Pileup, Chapter 3
Dean looked at the piles of papers surrounding his little brother. "Sam, we've been at this for seven hours. You need a break. Sara won't mind if you come along. You could interview some people at the bar or…something." Dean trailed off when he realized that he didn't have a speck of Sam's attention.
"You go, Dean." Sam replied without looking up from his task. "Have fun. Don't do anything I wouldn't do."
Dean snorted, "Yeah, right." He clapped Sam, who was seated cross-legged on the floor in the center of the papers, on the shoulder. "See you in the morning, little bro."
"Pretty confident, aren't you?"
With a final superior smirk, Dean hobbled from the cabin, making sure that the door latched firmly behind him, which locked Sam safely inside. Then he made his way down the dirt path to the roadway, where his car waited patiently.
"Hey, there, gorgeous. How 'bout I buy you a drink?"
Sara turned with a smile, meeting Dean's gaze. "I don't usually date gimps, but I'll make an exception for you." She returned.
"Great. How about you get it, though? I have got to sit down."
She snickered. "Sure. What's your drink?"
"Rum and coke." He said, sliding a twenty to her before turning away to find a booth. When he managed to find a vacant one, he sank into it gratefully.
He watched her sashay to the bar, lean over it, and bark her order to the tender. Within a few minutes, their request had been filled and Sara had returned, sliding into the vacant spot and passing his glass across the table to him. "Here." She said, taking a long sip of her own drink.
They sat in companionable silence for a few minutes. Then Sara said conversationally, "So, Dean, what's the deal with you?"
"The…deal?" He repeated. "What do you mean?"
"You and the guy you came into the library with. What's your deal?"
"That guy? Oh! Sam! He's my brother." Dean smiled into his drink. "Good kid. So…" with a carefully-practiced air, he turned the conversation from himself to the reason for their "visit". "What can you tell me about this camp on the lake?"
She smiled coyly and closed her lips around her straw. "So that's it? I'm just a fountain of information?"
"Of course not." To reinforce this statement, he let his eyes linger on her lips, still closed around the straw, and the drink flowing through them. "I'm just curious."
She tossed her head, flipping her bangs out of her eyes, and studied him for a long moment. "You're really not going to give up on this, are you?"
"No."
She sighed and averted her gaze. Dean felt that instinctive tingle that told him he was getting close--Sara knew something that wasn't in the papers or the history books, and he was going to find it. He was good at that. "Well…"
"Well, what?" He leaned forward, an innocent traveler interested in the area's interesting lore, nothing more. At least, he hoped that that was the impression he was pulling off.
She seemed to debate for a moment longer, hesitated, then decided to tell him, "A few years ago, there was…an incident."
"An incident?"
"It was low-key, kept very quiet. All of it." She leaned forward conspiratorially. "In 2001, I think, there was a huge house fire on that property. It's twenty-eight acres, and the house was set in the center. The only way to get to it was this long dirt road, and it had been a rainy spring. By the time firefighters got back through the mud, the house had burned to the ground--the fire was already almost out."
"Wow. Who was it?"
"Family's name was Carlyle. There was a mother, a father, and two girls inside."
"And all of them died?"
"They think so. The house was burned horribly; worse than anything anyone had ever seen before. There weren't any bodies to find. Everything had burned to nothingness. Ash."
"So they don't know that the family died?"
"Oh, they died." She said, not a shade of doubt in her voice, "Hardly anybody will go near that property. About a year after the family died, Reed Johnson bought the land and tried to build that hunting and fishing camp on it. It did really well for the first few months, and then, suddenly, everyone stopped coming. People began to pack up and leave in the middle of the night, no explanation. Others demanded their money back. He finally had to shut it down and use it only for private business and the occasional overly-brave travelers. And then…then, in early 2003, the disappearances started."
"The kids." He murmured.
"Sorry?" She leaned closer.
"Nothing. Disappearances?"
"Yeah. Kids started disappearing from everywhere--Burkett, Mayville, Staybrook. All ages, all races, all walks of life. It was terrifying."
"None of them were found?"
"One actually came back, just a few months ago. She's spending a lot of her time in the nuthouse, though. Her name's..." She rolled her eyes to the ceiling, as though she might find the child's name there, "Evelyn McFarland; she's fifteen now. She disappeared last summer and they found her walking along Route 36 in November." Sara, apparently finished with her story, sighed contentedly and leaned back in the cracked red leather booth. "She's all kinds of mad." She said dismissively, waving her hand at Evelyn's apparent condition.
He nodded, thinking that Evelyn McFarland probably wasn't as mad as Sara was painting her to be. "And they think the disappearances are linked to the fire?"
"Some people do." She said with a one-shouldered shrug. "The crazies that believe in that ghost crap. I don't." She seemed a bit irritated about the questioning--it obviously wasn't turning into the night she'd hoped for. Dean offered her an apologetic smile, but plunged ahead. The hunt came first. There would be time for Sara later.
Finally, when he was sure he'd gotten all the information he'd need, Dean rose and gave her THAT smile--the one that always had its desired effects on a woman. "I'm sorry. I swear, I'm done now. I tend to get a bit…carried away when it comes to ghost stories. Let me take a quick break and we'll get back to our night." He promised.
She settled back in the booth with a satisfied smile, and he could almost hear the "that's better" running through her mind. "Sure."
So excused, Dean made his way down the hall to the bathrooms, away from the pounding music, the shouting, the cigarette smoke, to call his brother.
"Prepare to be amazed." He announced when Sam picked up.
"Oh, really?" The younger Winchester sounded skeptical.
"Really. I found out who owns the land, what happened there, and I think I even know what's up with our ghostly Brady bunch."
"Land's owned by a Reed Johnson, owned before that by the Carlyle family. He decided to sell it a few years ago."
There was a long pause as Dean digested what he'd just heard. Then, "How do you always do that?"
"There's a reason they call me the smart one, Dean."
"Because 'the cute one' was already taken?" He shot back. "But, Oh-Smart-One" He emphasized the word, internally delighted that he still had more information than his research-obsessed brother, "What you don't know is that the Carlyle family all died in a house fire. In 2001." He paused.
"…oh." There was a rustling of papers, then Sam cleared his throat uncomfortably, "Dean…Christina, that ghost? Her last name was Carlyle."
"It was?"
"Yeah." A long pause. "Well, we may have just blown that part of the mystery open, anyway." He said thoughtfully.
But Dean wasn't finished yet. "And," He said, growing more pleased by the moment, "Just after Johnson's camp went under, children started to disappear. I think that's where our little ghost-daycare came from. Now," He said into Sam's surprised silence, "You go back to your papers. I," He emphasized the word haughtily, "am going to go back to my date."
"I'm impressed." Sam said finally.
"As well you should be. You think you're the only one that can manage this information stuff?"
"I know you can." Sam said distractedly. Dean could hear him shuffling papers in the background.
"Whatever, kid. Return to the realm of the geek." He slapped the phone closed and dropped it back into his pocket before elbowing his way through the surprisingly dense crowd back to the ratty corner booth. "Now, where were we?" He asked Sara cheerfully.
She leaned across the table, eyes dancing coyly. "You tell me." She challenged.
As the night wore on, Sara finished drink after drink, but Dean quit early, not even finishing his first, keeping his eyes on the tables in the far corner and calculating how to get some pool hustling in before the night ended.
Two hours after his phone call to Sam, he was leaning over to talk to Sara when something over his date's shoulder caught his eye--a flash of glitter. In the shadows beside the gleaming wooden bar stood a little blonde girl wearing a fancy, shimmering white gown, white tights, and white mary-janes. Leaning to the left to study the child, he nudged Sara's bare arm, "Hey, Sara, who's that?"
"Who's who?" She glanced over her shoulder expectantly.
"That girl. The kid next to the bar."
"What kid?" Grey-green eyes scanned the room's occupants. "Dean, maybe you should switch to water."
"No, no, I'm fine." He neglected to tell her that he'd taken exactly four sips of his drink all night. He was far from inebriated. "I'll be right back." He promised. He rose, tucked the crutches under his arms again, and threaded his way through the throng.
He kept his eyes on the child, afraid that if he blinked, she would disappear. When he finally reached her, Dean leaned down to make sure that she could hear him over the music. "Hi."
She blinked at him, blue eyes wide.
"What are you doing here?" He asked, glancing around. No parents were in sight, and she looked awfully dressed up. Something was amiss, and he had a bad feeling that he knew exactly what it was.
His neck cracked as he snapped his head around at the sound of her response, "He needs you."
"What?" He leaned down farther, unsure if he'd heard right, and massaged the fresh sore spot on the back of his neck.
"He's calling for you. You have to come."
"Who?" He hissed, more harshly than he'd intended. She backed away. "I'm sorry." He said sincerely, eyes softening. "Who needs me?"
"Him. Sam."
His heart tightened, and, in that moment, he knew for certain that he was looking at another one of the ghosts that had somehow attached themselves to the cabin he and Sam were currently occupying…and now, apparently, to them as well. "Sam...my Sam?"
She nodded, golden bangs dancing on her forehead.
"Where is he? Is he hurt?"
She turned and walked from the bar, glancing back at him in an obvious "follow-me" gesture. Date forgotten, he did so as quickly as he could. When they reached the parking lot and his black Impala, she stopped, turned, and looked at him expectantly. He was already moving around the car and climbing in. "Well, come on." He called, and she climbed through the door and took a seat next to him.
"Is he at the cabin?" He asked, gunning the engine.
But she had vanished. There was no choice--he would have to trust his instinct. He floored the accelerator and peeled out of the parking lot.
Dean took the six steps to the front porch two at a time--no easy feat with a pair of crutches under his arms and a gun in his left hand. As he opened the front door with a crash, cry alerted him to his brother's whereabouts. Horrified, he dropped the crutches and raced down the hall, grabbing the wall to help support his ankle, which cried in protest with each step. He ignored it, "Sam!"
The older Winchester brother stopped short in the doorway, so fast he nearly fell over. Rage, more white-hot and all-consuming than he'd ever felt before, washed over him. His brother lay sprawled on the bed, struggling furiously against some unseen force.
Beside the bed was Christina. She stood stone-still, staring down at Sam, her eyes locked onto his struggling form. She seemed to be whispering something under her breath--a spell of some sort? Dean didn't know, and he didn't care. All he knew was that he had to stop her--now--and he was going to do it.
"Get away from him!" He roared, raising the gun and starting across the room. The girl didn't move; she didn't even seem to hear him. Halfway to the bedside, Dean was stopped short, the gun snapping from his grasp to clatter to the floor yards away and skid to the wall. A pair of hands had caught his right arm, just above the elbow, and another had seized his left. Looking down, his eyes met two identical faces--the girl he had met at the bar and what was obviously her twin sister, dressed exactly like her.
He tried to wrench away, but it was like trying to break iron. The girls held fast, despite his ever-increasing desperate struggles. "Sam! Sammy! Leave him alone!"
Yeah, I'm one of those evil cliffhanger authors. Once in a great while. I'm sorry, I just couldn't resist!
See you for chapter 4, and thanks again for all the wonderful reviews!
